When You Can’t Escape The Overwhelming Sadness & Exhaustion

Your alarm clock goes off but you struggle to get out of bed. You’re exhausted and your legs feel as heavy as your eyelids. You blindly pick an outfit just for the sake of having one — it’s black to reflect your mood. You may make breakfast even if you aren’t in the mood to eat it. And let’s be honest, it’s probably just going to be coffee.

You suffer through the day feeling like you’ve barely done anything. All you could focus on was getting back to bed. You’ve been exhausted despite having a deep sleep the night before. You’re drained mentally and that’s the most debilitating form of exhaustion and unconsciousness there is.

The things that usually excite you aren’t a priority anymore.

Sure, you watch your shows and crack a smile or shed a tear, but you aren’t as invested as you usually are. The second your smile fades, it’s back to the dark reality you’re living in. Even your friends can’t help you because you can’t even identify why you feel this way.

You feel like a real asshole because you’re not the person you normally are. You feel like you’re treating people poorly when they’ve done nothing to you. Turning down invitations is the first red flag, but then it’ll develop into forcing fake laughter to seem polite when you don’t even want to be there. Then avoiding social contact as much as possible becomes the last straw.

You know it could be worse.

And you can remind yourself of that all you want, but somehow it doesn’t change anything. You can’t make yourself feel better and consequently, you feel like an asshole, knowing other people have it far worse. Even thinking of your blessings can’t fix what’s broken inside of you. Instead, you just feel numb. And because of that numbness, you fear being ungrateful even though you know you aren’t.

Then you feel like a loser for being tethered to your bed despite wanting to break the cycle. You have goals you want to achieve and trivial daily tasks you know you need to get done. But you’re struggling to push through that sadness. Being unproductive makes you feel worse, but you can’t help it.

It’s not like you chose to wake up feeling useless or hopeless. It just kind of happens with no explanation, cause, or reason. It might be a result of lacking a purpose or trying to find a new reason to be happy and live. But it won’t debilitate you for long.

Eventually, the painful sadness will be gone and you’ll return back to normal one day. Sadly, no one is immune to these feelings; money, privilege, and lifestyle choices make no difference. Everyone’s a target of overwhelming sadness at some point — even if there’s no clear cause. Sure, it may come back and make you feel powerless again, but you know it’ll be gone, just like it had been before.

For anyone who can relate or is going through it right now, you are not alone. So many people feel the same lack of motivation, debilitating sadness, and exhaustion. Don’t focus on making it to tomorrow. Just make it through today and only worry about that. And as each day comes, you’ll continue to combat it until you start to feel like your beautiful self again.